Veterans Affairs Department Urged to Tighten Contract Performance Standards

NextGov

Three Democratic senators are pressing the Department of Veterans Affairs to prioritize stronger accountability standards as it negotiates a new one-year contract with Oracle Cerner to deliver its electronic health record system. 

Blueprint for Using Behavioral Science in Evidence-Based Policymaking

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Successfully leveraging social and behavioral science allows the federal government to produce more efficient and effective efforts with more positive, meaningful, and equitable outcomes for all individuals. The failure to understand and address the social and behavioral dimensions of issues reduces effectiveness of policies, programs, and outcomes for the American public and risks unintended consequences.

Baltimore County Debuts Its New Strategic Plan

National Academy of Public Administration

The goals of the plan – which include facilitating vibrant communities, equitable decision making, workforce empowerment, and government accountability – all reflect back on NAPA’s Grand Challenges to help drive public administration into a brighter future.

Why Infrastructure Is So Hard to Fix

TIME 

Great piece on how a consortium of civil society groups have come together to support the Local Infrastructure Hub to navigate federal grant application and reporting processes, lamenting: “ Technical assistance, and, critically, support for local innovation, data, and project management muscle should be built into federal investments.”

Resource of the Week:

An Evaluation Policy Guide: Results for America

This Guide is intended to help government policymakers trying to make better decisions and deliver faster results. Governments are at different stages of their evaluation and data-driven decision-making journeys. This Guide was developed to support both building new evaluation policies and evolving current practices.